Advances in semi-conductor processing and logic design have permitted an increase in the amount of logic that may be present on integrated circuit devices. As a result, computer system configurations have evolved from a single or multiple integrated circuits in a system to multiple cores and multiple logical processors present on individual integrated circuits. A processor or integrated circuit typically comprises a single processor die, where the processor die may include any number of processing elements, such as cores, threads, and/or logical processors.
Management functions in a computer system have become more prevalent with the increase in logic and functionality. Many processors utilize a management mode, such as System Management Mode (SM), to handle management tasks, such as networking, storage, and power tasks. Often, devices or sources that are requesting management initiate or generate interrupts. As the number of interrupts and interrupts grow from the rising level of functionality in a computer system, the burden on processors to perform these management tasks becomes more cumbersome.
Traditionally, even in a multi-processor system, interrupts are serviced by a single boot processor. Although, handling of interrupt sources by a single boot processor potentially saves power, as other processors in a multi-processor system may be able to remain in a low power mode, during high activity periods the other processors remain idle waiting for a single processor to service the interrupts.